NSF GRANTS FOR 1957

Univ. of Oklahoma: An NSF grant will provide funds for grants-in-aid for competent
students and investigators in biology to work at the 1957 summer term of the
university's Biological Station, Lake Texoma. Three types of grants are available:
1. post-doctoral grants of $500; 2. predoctoral grants of $350: 3. $200 grants
for superior undergraduates and beginning graduate students. Investigations
to be pursued must be suitable for the Biological Station. Applications should
be sent by April 10 to Carl Riggs, U. of Okla. Biological Station. Norman. Okla.

Univ. of Oregon: NSF will sponsor a 1957 summer institute in marine biology
at Charleston. Oregon. in cooperation with Univ. of Oregon. Planned for college
teachers of botany and zoology who need first-hand experience in marine biology,
the program provides stipends, subsidies for dependents, and limited travel
funds for 20 participants. Site of the program is Oregon Institute of Marine
Biology at Charleston. Closing date for applications is April 1. 1957. For information
and application blanks, write Robert W. Morris, director, NSF Summer Institute
in Marine Biology, Univ. of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon.

Other notes on NSF grants: Approximately 4500 high school and 250 college teachers
of science will receive grants for 1957 summer institutes supported by NSF to
the tune of $4.800.000. Eighty-six institutes will be open only to high-school
teachers of science and math., 4 will be open to both high-school and college
teachers, and 5 to college teachers only. Institutes for both high-school and
college teachers will be held at Claremont College, Claremont, Calif.; Montana
State College, Bozeman, Mont.; Univ. of Washington, Seattle; Univ. of Kansas,
Lawrence, Kansas. Institutes for college teachers only will be held at Univ.
of Oregon, Eugene (Marine BioI.); Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N. Y. (Botany): Univ.
of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill, N. C. (Chemistry); Univ. of Illinois, Urbana (Geology):
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder (Math.). In addition, NSF is supporting 1957-1958
academic year institutes at 16 U.S. colleges and universities; information concerning
these academic-year institutes and grants for them may be obtained from the
NSF office. Washington 25. D.C.; a sum of $4,065,000 has been appropriated for
grants to the 750 high-school science teachers who will attend these academic-year
institutes and for other institute expenses.

PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL

Edgar Anderson resigned the Directorship of Missouri Botanical Garden in January
1957, and Hugh Cutler

PAGE FIVE

has been appointed Acting Director of that institution. Anderson has received
a Guggenheim grant and is currently working in mathematics and statistics at
Princeton; his grant, which will support his research for at least 3 years,
will enable him to conduct additional work in statistics as applied to botanical
and zoological problems, to complete west coast studies of hybrid Salvias, to
carry out some work in Ethiopia, and to engage in other botanical and bio-statistical
activities. On his return to Mo. Bot. Gard., Anderson will have the title Curator
of Useful Plants.

Hardy L. Shirley, Dean of State Univ. College of Forestry at Syracuse U., has
been made an honorary member of the Society of Finnish Foresters for "out-
standing contributions to the field of international forestry. "

K. B. Raper, U. of Wisc., has received a George I. Haight Travelling Research
Fellowship from the Wisc. Alumni Research Foundation. Dr. Raper will visit and
work at labs. in France, Netherlands, and England.

V. H. CHASE HERBARIUM ACQUIRED BY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

The Univ. of Illinois has purchased the 40,000 specimen herbarium of Virginius
H. Chase (a nephew of Mrs. Agnes Chase) of Peoria Heights, Illinois. Born in
1876 in Wady Petra, Ill., Dr. Chase attended country school, spent two winters
at Princeville Academy, the final portion of his formal education. His degrees,
M.S. from Kenyon College and Doctor of Science from Bradley University, are
honorary. The Chase herbarium is the last of the larger private herbaria in
Illinois not yet turned over to a university or museum and represents the residue
of a much larger collection distributed through 50 years to several of the large
herbaria of the U.S. About 1/3 of the specimens were collected in Illinois,
the others from other portions of the U.S., Mexico, Europe, South America, and
New Zealand. The specimens are of exceptionally high quality and scientific
value. This addition to the U. of Ill. herbarium brings its total accessions
to about 400,000, making that herbarium the 4th largest in American state universities
(larger herbaria are those of Universities of Calif., Minn., and Mich.). The
Chase herbarium is the second important botanical acquisition of the U. of Ill.
Bot. Dept. within two years, the first a collection of Gregor Mendel manuscripts,
specimens, and relics of his life and work. Curator of the U. of I. herbarium
is G. Neville Jones.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF DARBAKER PRIZE IN PHYCOLOGY FOR 1957

The Darbaker Prize Committee of the Botanical Society of America will accept
nominations for an award to be announced at the annual meeting of the Society
in 1957. Under terms of the bequest, the award is to be made for meritorious
work in the study of the algae, particularly the microscopic algae. The Committee
will base its judgment primarily on the papers published by the candidate during
the last two full calendar years previous to the closing date for nominations.
Only papers published in English will be considered. Nomi- nations for the 1957
award, accompanied by a statement of the merits of the case and by reprints
of the publications supporting the candidacy, should be sent to the Chairman
of the Committee in order to be received by May 1, 1957. The value of the Prize
for 1957, which depends on the income from the trust fund, is expected to be
about $200.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

A member of Bot Soc. proposes that PSB make this suggestion: that the visits
of many foreign botanists (especially Europeans) to the International Botanical
Congress in Canada in 1959 will furnish an opportunity for American colleges
and universities to invite some of these visitors to give lectures or to conduct
short summer courses preceding and following the sessions of the Congress; names
of distinguished foreign botanists who are Corresponding Members or Active Members
of Bot. Soc. are included in the new Bot. Soc. Yearbook now in press. Honoraria
paid to these botanists for such lectures and short courses will help defray
the expenses of their travel. Think it over and be especially nice to your Dean
and President if you plan to act on this suggestion.

NSF SUMMER INSTITUTE IN BOTANY AT CORNELL

The program for this institute, described in the last number of PSB, is the
following, according to Director Harlan Banks:

Applications from college teachers for grants for this summer institute should
reach Director Banks before April 15, 1957.

GREAT SMOKY WILDFLOWER PILGRIMAGE

The 7th Annual Wildflower Pilgrimage to Great Smoky Mts. National Park at Gatlinburg,
Tenn., will occur April 24-27. 1957. The pilgrimage, to be led by park naturalists,
botanists, and photographers, will include trips to study wildflowers, mosses
and ferns, and birds, and illustrated evening lectures. For further details,
write A. J. Sharp, Dept of Botany, Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville.

NSF RESEARCH PROPOSALS

Division of Biol. and Med. Sci. of Nat. Sci. Foundation announces that the
next closing date for receipt of research proposals in life sciences is May
15, 1957. Proposals received before that date will be reviewed at the summer
meetings of NSF's Advisory Panels and disposition will be made about 4 months
following this date. Proposals received after May 15 will be reviewed following
Fall closing date, Sept, 15, 1957. In addition to funds for support of basic
research, limited funds will be available for support of research facilities
and programs at biological field stations. Inquiries should be addressed to
NSF, Washington 25. D.C.

TREASURER TO EDITOR TO YOU

Bot. Soc. Treasurer has reported to PSB Editor that he receives many notices
of address changes in the autumn and at the time when dues bills become payable
in December, that most of these notices are unaccompanied by information concerning
what lies behind these changes. The Treasurer suggests that, if members reporting
new addresses were to include some personal information about these changes
(e.g.. do some of these indicate promotion in rank on changing institutions
and thus professional advance, do they involve shifts from academic to non-academic
careers [or vice versa], do they suggest translation of professorial gentry
to administrative sinecures?) when they send in these changes, this information
might constitute newsworthy items for the columns of Plant Science Bulletin.
The Editor agrees: think it over, put aside your natural modesty, and, when
next you send in a notice of address change, state what it's all about.

NEWS FROM THE CANAL ZONE

Dr. James Zetek, Curator of Barro Colorado Island Biological Lab., retired
from that post on May 31, 1956. Dr. Zetek, now 70, has spent 45 years engaged
in biological research and administration in the tropics. He plans now to write
the history of the Barro Colorado Lab. and his memoirs and to prepare a catalog
of the land. fresh-water, and marine shells of Panama. Although he is an entomologist
rather than a botanist, Dr. Zetek has been helpful to many botanists who have
conducted investigations on Barro Colorado. These botanists are joined by the
Editorial Board of PSB in wishing for Dr. Zetek good health and the energy for
the completion of these important projects. Dr. Zetek writes, "I do not
yet know what I shall do with my mollusk collection. nearly 7,000 species, 35.000
specimens, about half of these in duplicate for exchanges." Pass the word.

OLDEST LIVING THINGS

Pines more than 4000 years old have been discovered growing at timberline in
the White Mts. in eastern California by Edward Schulman and C. W. Ferguson,
Jr. of the Univ. of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. These pines
exceed the age of the oldest known Sequoias of California by approximately 1000
years.

NOTES ON XYLEM PHYSIOLOGY

Heard recently about a botany professor whose students christened his car "Xylem"
because of the sap which travelled in it.

LOSS TO BOTANY?

A career pamphlet "Should You Be A Lawyer?" by Roscoe Pound as told
to Donald Robinson and published by the New York Life Insurance Co., contains
some material about the education of the famous former Dean of Harvard Law School.
Writes Dean Pound: "When I was a senior at the University of Nebraska-that
was quite awhile ago, in 1888, to be

PAGE SEVEN

exact - I started to think very seriously of botany as a career. The reason
for this was simple. I was studying under an exceptional old professor of botany
who had me all excited about his subject. Luckily, I asked my father what he
thought of it. Father was a man of practical, good sense and he quickly convinced
me that I was much better suited for law than for botany. I have felt deeply
grateful to him ever since." (Reprinted through courtesy of New York Life
Insurance Co.) .

The "exceptional old professor of botany" was, of course, Charles
E. Bessey. Donald Rogers reports that Pound was a charter member of the Mycological
Society, that he relinquished his membership in 1954.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

(This letter. addressed to the Editor. has been circulated to members of the
Editorial Board. who have indicated their approval of its publication.)
44 Pond Street
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
January 11, 1957

DEAR DR. FULLER:
As you and so many of your members knew my late husband, Dr. Elmer D. Merrill.
who was for a great many years a member of your Society, you have probably noted
the review of his life and work which appeared in the July, 1956, issue of the
Journal of the Arnold Arboretum. This account omitted what seems to me a most
important fact relating to his last years and without this fact I feel very
strongly that the record is not complete.

The article dwells at length upon my husband's work as Director of the Arnold
Arboretum between 1936 and 1946. It refers particularly to his part in drawing
up preliminary plans for the policy which became known in due course as the
Bailey Plan. This is quite correct as far as it goes, but the article omits
to state that in 1946, on study of the plan as it had evolved, Dr. Merrill became
convinced that the plan would be injurious to the Arboretum. Notwithstanding
Dr. Merrill's opposition, the plan, as qualified by the Harvard Corporation
in 1953, was applied to the Arnold Arboretum, resulting in the transfer of most
of the Arboretum's library and herbarium from the traditional headquarters at
Jamaica Plain to the Harvard University Herbarium Building in Cambridge.

It required, as you must understand, a great deal of courage for Dr. Merrill
publicly to reverse his position and to come out against a policy of the University.
It seems proper, as I have pointed out, that the botanical world should know
that from 1946 until the time of his death he opposed the above plan both privately
and publicly.

I hope you will be good enough to publish this so that your members can know
the facts.

Yours sincerely,
(signed) AUGUSTA S. MERRILL
(Mrs. Elmer D. Merrill)

RESEARCH ITEMS WANTED

William S. Hillman, Research Associate, Dept. of Botany, Yale Univ., New Haven,
Conn., would like to receive live specimens of any native or exotic Lemnaceae
(except L. minor), particularly L. gibba, L. trisulca, L. valdiviana, and Wolfiella.

NORTHEASTERN SECTION FORAY

The Northeastern Section will sponsor a field foray August 20-22, inclusive,
with the Univ. of Maine, Orono, Maine, as headquarters. Trips will be taken
to Mt. Katahdin, University forests, Jackson Labs. at Bar Harbor, and blueberry
barrens. In addition, one or two evening meetings will be held. Inquiries should
be directed soon to Jesse Livingston, Dept. of Botany, Univ. of Maine, chairman
of local arrangements, or to T. T. Kozlowski, Dept. of Botany, Univ. of Mass.,
Amherst, Mass., secretary of the section.

GENERAL SECTION ASSESSMENT

Members of the General Section of the Botanical Society are reminded that
they voted a $1.00 assessment for each member to defray the expenses of mimeographing
abstracts. This is now due. Checks or money orders should be made payable to
Barbara F. Palser, Secretary of the Section, and sent to her at the Department
of Botany, University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois. The few members who
sent $1.00 last year need not do so this year unless they so desire.

PAGE EIGHT

NEW BIOLOGY BUILDING

Construction of a new biology building has commenced at the Univ. of Illinois.
The first wing will house the departments of bacteriology and physiology and
the biology library; a wing to be erected later will house botany, entomology,
and zoology.

CHANGE OF MANAGERS

William B. Drew. Mich. State Univ., has just completed his sentence as Business
Manager of American Journal of Botany and now looks forward to peace, quiet,
and the restoration of his shattered nerves. James E. Canright, Dept. of Botany,
Indiana Univ., Bloomington. Indiana, has succeeded Drew as Bus. Mgr. of Amer.
Jour. Bot. PSB expresses to Drew the gratitude of members of Bot. Soc. for his
valuable services and to Canright applause for his bravery in taking over this
time-demanding and exacting job upon which the success of our journal so largely
depends.

IMPROVEMENT OF ADVANCED UNDER-GRADUATE BIOLOGY COURSES

Many biologists have noted that college courses and textbooks often fail to
keep pace with advances in their science. What causes concern is not that discoveries
inevitably somewhat outdate any book before it can be printed, nor the omission
of specific research results. Rather, what is serious is the inertia impeding
the redirection of instruction in accord with fundamental changes in many fields
during recent decades. Courses may also have inadequate regard for changing
student needs; students must be prepared for the biology of 1970 and 1980, not
that of 1900 or even 1950. Obviously, the complexity and amount of information
in any field dictate severe selectivity in designing courses. It matters greatly
how that selection is made if the student, in the limited compass of a course.
is to be given a foundation that will serve well for the future. But tradition
and the fact that a college professor may be asked to teach subjects in which
he is not expert often lead to the persistence of more or less anachronistic
patterns of teaching.

The Committee on Educational Policies of the Biology Council, Division of Biology
and Agriculture, National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, has
proposed a method for meeting this situation. The plan can be applied to any
field by any responsible and informed group. The Committee itself, aided by
a grant from the National Science Foundation, will test the plan in two subjects.
If trial indicates that the approach is sound, the Committee hopes that the
demonstration will encourage professional societies and others concerned with
particular subjects to sponsor similar sudies.

Basically, he idea adapts the research conference technique to the development
of courses, recognizing that, even in a limited field, one person's knowledge
and wisdom rarely suffice. For a subject considered by those in the field to
need scrutiny, an ad hoc panel would be set up, composed of biologists who represent
different facets of the discipline and whose competence in research, experience
in teaching, and flexibility of thought are generally recognized. The panel
would make a wholly fresh start in designing the course, putting present practices
aside in so far as possible. It would first consider what function the course
should serve, what understanding and information students who take the course
- or might do so if it were properly developed - need. This question should
not be interpreted as stressing applications alone; undergraduate courses should
primarily contribute to the student's maturation as a biologist through emphasis
on comprehension of principles. Keeping these objectives and the present state
of our knowledge in mind, the panel would then define topics to be included
and the place and weight assigned to each, noting what time-worn material may
be eliminated, what sequential treatment will most effectively impart a coherent
picture of the subject as an area of systematic knowledge and. Especially, as
a sphere for continuing inquiry. Through correspondence and meetings, the panel
would exchange ideas and tentative outlines until it evolves an acceptable,
fairly detailed program, perhaps with suggestions for variations. Finally, the
panel would publish its report, exposing it to professional criticism and making
it available for the guidance of teachers and authors. The panel would then
disband, for the objective is not to replace one orthodoxy by another, but rather
to initiate what should become a continuing process of periodic re-evaluation
of courses.

The trial involves panels on Parasitism and Systematic Botany. After considering
many suggestions from a variety of sources, including the American Society of
Parasitologists and the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, panel members
were selected by the Committee and appointed by the Chairman of the Division.
The panels are now at work; reports due by June 30, 1957 will be published in
journals or through the Academy-Research Council. Both panels will be glad to
receive suggestions and ideas on the form and content of undergraduate courses
in their subjects.

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